


Nobody said it was easy/No one ever said it would be so hard

by addictive_chaos



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bombs, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Doctor Will, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Italian, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mortal AU, Nuclear Warfare, Olympian Percy, Pilot Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-13 00:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addictive_chaos/pseuds/addictive_chaos
Summary: Based on this prompt from the-modern-typewriter on Tumblr:“Wait. You knew her? Personally?”“I knew all of them,” they murmured. “At least, I thought I did. Once. A long time ago.”“What were they like?”Some crumpled copy of a smile crossed their face. “They were going to change the world.”And around them, the world burned.





	Nobody said it was easy/No one ever said it would be so hard

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the prompt: 
> 
> http://the-modern-typewriter.tumblr.com/post/160764500108/wait-you-knew-her-personally-i-knew-all-of

* * *

 

**~2175 AD**

A barely 21 year old Nico di Angelo was sat on a hill in the middle of an American field. His lover was asleep in the grass next to him. He wondered if this was all just bittersweet. He’d barely survived a seemingly endless nuclear war and found the love of his life.

The leaders of the U.S., Russia, and China didn’t seem to understand just what they were doing anymore. They just threw nuclear weapons at civilians, trying to justify their actions with “God told me” to news reporters.

There weren’t even troops being deployed anymore – just dropping bombs on innocents. Nico hated it. He’d had too many friends die to government religion bullshit.

He’d been the son of a wealthy man. He lived with his mother and two sisters.

 

But his younger sister, Hazel, had gone to a friend’s house in Florence at the beginning of the war, 7 years prior. And his father had gotten warning they were going to be dropping a bomb in Italy.

So his mother and father left Nico and his older sister, Bianca, in charge of the large villa while they drove the 8 hours to get Hazel.

The next morning, on the news, the siblings saw the bomb had landed in Florence and there were no survivors so far. And in the end, only a dog survived.

The first thing the pair did was call their cousins, Percy, Jason, and Thalia, who’d all lost their parents in the New York City bombing.

 

Nico had reflected many times on all of the things they could’ve done if it hadn’t been for the war.

Percy was a 3 time Olympic Gold Medalist who had donated all of the money he got from it to starving people across the world.

Thalia had been a brilliant lawyer and public speaker. She would speak out about rape crimes. She had been teaching the public how it’s not the victims fault. Ever.

Jason was a pilot and plane engineer. He’d worked on making commercial planes faster and still safe.

Even Bianca, at only 17, was side by side with Thalia, speaking out about rape on college campuses.

Hell! Hazel, at 13, was at protests for the environment.

But Nico stayed back, scared of the popularity. Sure, he was passionate about stuff, but he didn’t want paparazzi following him and gossiping.

 

But all of them stepped down from their public pedestals after 18 months of war. That’s when Nico and Bianca met up with their cousins in a field in Portugal.

Or, they were supposed to. The siblings found out 4 years later, their plane had been shot down, when the wreckage washed up. It’d sunk in the middle of the Atlantic.

 

Alone, Nico remembered how they’d lived in a small local village. Here, they’d made friends with the locals despite not knowing the language.

But when 3 odd men came in one day, he knew something was off. His suspicion was right when they tried to mug Bianca and him in the forest nearby.

When Bianca began to bleed out from the wound in her gut, Nico lost it and, somehow, beat all 3 men to death. He doesn’t remember it. It was a blur. But the life leaving his sisters eyes became seared into his eyelids. How she’d caressed his cheek and said, “ _Mio piccolo eroe_.*” before dying in his arms.

 

Everything after that was a blur. Somehow, he’d gotten a boat to America, despite barely speaking the language. And he’d gotten himself in trouble in the first makeshift town he stopped in. The local judge decided 3 days of community service would be good.

He’d opted to spend it at the town infirmary. There, he met Will Solace. And there, he learned something new every day. He ended up staying much more than 3 days.

 

Then the bombings became more frequent and frequent. When Washington D.C. burned, the two fled in the night, hand in hand.

And somehow, they’d ended up where they were now, on a hill outside Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Will woke up just as the burning sun set. “Afternoon, sunshine.” He smiled up at Nico. “I just had the weirdest dream.” He slowly sat up.

Nico smiled warmly at him. “Tell me about it.” Well, he didn’t smile with his mouth anymore. He smiled with his eyes.

“I had a dream I beat that Olympian, Percy Jackson, just in a swimming race.”

“I knew him. And you’d never beat him.” He sighed contently. Much of the grass around them was dead or dying from all the radiation the air. Nonetheless, he leaned back on it.

 

“Wait. You knew him? Personally?” Will cocked his head curiously.

“I knew all of them.” He murmured. “Thalia and Jason Grace. Percy Jackson. Bianca di Angelo. Hazel Levesque.”

“They were all cousins, right?”

Nico nodded. Overhead, a plane flew towards Madison. Neither of them registered what was happening besides their conversation.

“And didn’t Bianca and Hazel have that brother who never spoke publicly?”

He nodded. “And you’re looking at him.” He smiled – still with his eyes – at his lover as his eyes widened.

“What were they like?” Will breathed.

A sad, broken smile that was on the border of insane crossed Nico’s face. “They were gonna change the world.”

 

Will snuggled into his boyfriend’s chest, sighing when arms wrapped around his waist. They had connected the dots to what was about happen, but ignored it.

Their worlds went blazing white that came with being vaporized by a nuclear bomb.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I apologized if its not an exact translation. I used Google. 
> 
> *My little hero.
> 
> Side note: I wrote this in an hour so sorry if it's awful.


End file.
